1.It's affinity for cornfields.
2.They rattle and shake like my old dishwasher.
3.They do not handle well on the ground (many ground crashes, I was onboard one that skidded quite severely)
4.Their poorly placed hydraulics.

I fly the DC-10, but I try to avoid them for these reasons. I am not afraid to fly a DC-10, but I do consider other airlines when the DC-10 is the A/C.

AS I'M SURE YOU KNOW THE DC-10 HAS HAD ALOT OF PROBLEMS, LIKE CRASHES. AND THE PRESS ALLWAYS PLAYS UP ANY DC-10 EVENT.... HOWEVER I CAN TELL YOU THAT THE DC-10 IS A VERY WELL BUILT AIRCRAFT . ALL THOU IT STARTED OUT WRONG ,TODAY IT HAS TO BE ONE OF THE SAFEST PLANES FLYING.

You've mistaken dislike for fear. I don't believe there are many people on the forum who have said they are afraid to fly on the DC-10. That fear peaked 20 years ago and has been subsiding ever since. Now people have other planes of which to be afraid. It's just been noted that the DC-10 (lovely bird?) was perhaps not as sound as it should have been, and not nearly as sound as its direct contemporary, the L-1011 (lovely bird!).
The only planes you need to fear are the ones for whom the crashes were never fully explained and, consequently, the problems which led to those crashes, never definitively proven and, therefore, never totally fixed. The only plane that fits that description is the 737 (200-500 series).

When DC decided to hurry the job to get the aircraft out for production before the L1011, they made a vast mistake and unfortunately lots of people had to pay their lives with this decision. The airplane has some crucial flaws (like the hydrolic system) and that is what gives it the bad reputation it has. As much as i LOVE the MD11, the DC10 is falling short in my category of likeable airplanes.

Its a piece of junk. Im not too fond of Dc-10s althought Ive flown on many of them. its not a bad aircraft, but it seems cramped and you dont have the pleasure of space liek you do in the 747 of newer aircraft...
thanks,
isaac

I flew on it 2 times for the first time this summer. Yes, I was a little nervous, I kept playing the AA DC-10 crash in 1979 in my mind, but I just told myself this plane has probably flown for many years, without a problem, and I shouldn't worry. I would fly the DC-10 again. (Of course I look up the registration, and this is what I get: Scheduled 14 CFR 121 operation of NORTHWEST AIRLINES, INC.
Incident occurred AUG-09-89 at DENVER, CO
Aircraft: MCDONNELL DOUGLAS DC-10-40, registration: N133JC
Injuries: 254 Uninjured.
WHILE CLIMBING THROUGH 38,000 FEET, THE AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED AN UNCONTAINED FAN BLADE SEPARATION IN THE NO. 2 ENGINE. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT ONE OF THE FIRST-STAGE COMPRESSOR FAN BLADES (S/N EB2506) HAD SEPARATED ABOUT 8 INCHES ABOVE THE BLADE PLATFORM. FRAGMENTS FROM THE BLADE (#8) HAD EXITED THROUGH THE LEFT FAN COWL IN THREE PLACES AND HAD PENETRATED THE VERTICAL STABILIZER. THE BLADE SEPARATION STEMMED FROM A 0.34-INCH LONG FATIGUE CRACK THAT BEGAN IN A WELD ADJACENT TO A PATCH. THE FAN BLADE HAD BEEN PATCH-REPAIRED EARLIER, AND SUBJECTED TO FOUR NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTS: X-RAY, FLUORESCENT PENETRANT, ULTRASONIC, AND EDDY CURRENT.
Probable Cause
FATIGUE FAILURE AND SEPARATION OF A FIRST-STAGE COMPRESSOR FAN BLADE)

I love the DC10!!!! That AA crash in 1979 that Dazed767 mentioned really brought people against this beautiful plane. I love flying DC-10's and I'm going to miss them when they start getting fazed out. This plane is a workhorse.

People need to read up on that crash in 1979 at ORD. The crash had very little to do with the design of the aircraft and more to do with how AA replaced that engine. The DC-10 is quite capable of flying with two engines. When the engine fell off, so did the stick shaker and many instruments because they had no power. The flight crew thought they had an engine failure and followed procedures. Flaps, slats, all locked into postion because of the loss of hydraulic pressure. Had the crew known what was happening the crash would not have occured. They ran out of time, speed and altitude.

Had the engine been installed according to Douglas procedure instead of AA procedure, none of this would have happened.

Now, if you want to talk about the rear cargo door, THAT was a poor design. Using electric motors instead of hydraulic was purely a money and weight saving decision. Convair, who built that area of the aircraft was totally against the electric closing idea, but lost the fight.

I'll have to look up the incident, but I recall a 747 cargo door malfunction years back. Several passengers exited the aircraft while it was still in flight when compression was lost. Was that a UA flight from or to HNL?? If memory serves, some poor souls got sucked in the engines or fell to earth. The ship was damaged from flying debris along with a large hole in the right side.

Scheduled 14 CFR 121 operation of UNITED AIRLINES (D.B.A. UNITED AIRLINES,INC.)
Accident occurred FEB-24-89 at HONOLULU, HI
Aircraft: BOEING 747-122, registration: N4713U
Injuries: 9 Fatal, 5 Serious, 33 Minor, 309 Uninjured.
FTL #811 WAS A SCHEDULED PASSENGER FLIGHT FROM LOS ANGELES TO SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, WITH STOPS IN HONOLULU (HNL), HI, AND AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. THE FLT WAS UNEVENTFUL UNTIL AFTER DEPARTURE FROM HNL. WHILE CLIMBING FROM FL220 TO FL230 THE CREW HEARD A "THUMP" FOLLOWED BY AN EXPLOSION. AN EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION WAS EXPERIENCED AND THE #3 AND #4 ENGS WERE SHUTDOWN BECAUSE OF FOD. THE FLT RETURNED TO HNL AND PASSENGERS WERE EVACUATED. INSPECTION REVEALED THE FORWARD LOWER LOBE CARGO DOOR DEPARTED INFLT CAUSING EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THE FUSELAGE AND CABIN ADJACENT TO THE DOOR. NINE PASSENGERS WERE EJECTED AND LOST AT SEA. INVESTIGATION CENTERED AROUND DESIGN AND CERTIFICATION OF THE DOOR WHICH ALLOWED IT TO BE IMPROPERLY LATCHED, AND THE OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE TO ASSURE AIRWORTHINESS OF THE DOOR AND LATCHING MECHANISM. (SEE NTSB/AAR-90/01)
Probable Cause
THE SUDDEN OPENING OF THE IMPROPERLY LATCHED FORWARD LOBE CARGO DOOR IN FLIGHT AND THE SUBSEQUENT EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS A DEFICIENCY IN THE DESIGN OF THE CARGO DOOR LOCKING MECHANISMS, WHICH MADE THEM SUSCEPTIBLE TO INSERVICE DAMAGE, AND WHICH ALOWED THE DOOR TO BE UNATCHED, YET TO SHOW A PROPERLY LATCHED AND LOCKED POSITION. ALSO CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE LACK OF PROPER MAINTENANCE AND INSPECTION OF THE CARGO DOOR BY UNITED AIRLINES, AND A LACK OF TIMELY CORRECTIVE ACTIONS BY BOEING AND THE FAA FOLLOWING A PREVIOUS DOOR OPENING INCIDENT.

The accident rate. The Aft Cargo door has a nasty history of rupturing causing explosive decompression, collasping the rear deck onto main and redundant flight controls. FAA never made MD replace these cargo doors after a series of accidents in the 70's and 80's, mainly because it would have bankrupted the company. Engine replacement is time consuming, which caused an airline to modify the procedure, causing a pylon to shear on take-off. Airlines fault-yes, but maintenance procedures must be engineered to talor the fast pace service of airlines. It's a good airplane, indeed, but that aft cargo door (which was redesigned on the MD-11) scares me. One incident happened where the aft cargo door blew open and a coffin the was being transported, fell out.
That's why I think most people think that way about DC-10's.
Chuck

The first time that I flew on a DC-10 was a few weeks after one had crashed in Chicago in 1979, killing everyone on board. An engine had reportedly fallen off if I recall correctly. Everyone around us in the airport, were discussing how terrifying this particular aircraft was-- how they didn't want to fly on one.
But, after the three hour flight, we all were discussing how smooth and comfortable that flight was. I really like the DC-10 personally.

This is something i can't understand too well. D10s (McDOnnell Douglas DC-10) are flying for very longtime, and some of them have fallen and killed. Yes it's true!!! But they were re-designed into M11s (MD-11), and since then, M11s have fallen down and killed more than the older D10s. So what's on? Personally, i'm planning to visit NYC, and one of the possibilities is fly from BCN IBE's D10s to JFK or EWR. I won't miss the Big Apple because of this. It is true that I would like to fly 342 (Airbus A-340-200), so I'll try to go or come back on sunday so I can catch one, but not of fear for the DC. On the other hand, I've flown four times on VP's (Viação Aérea São Paulo, or VASP, Brazilian Airlines) MD-11s, three times BCN-MAD-SSA (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil) and back, and once BCN-SSA, and will fly it again. Going further, I've heard statements of an Iberia captain, of how one engine of his D10 stopped at about Fortaleza while flying MAD-GIG (Rio de Janeiro International), so he was flying some 5.000 kms (3,200 miles) with two engines and assimetric thrust. The pssgrs just DID NOT REALIZE anything. Last, I agree with "Hmmm..." about the worst accident rate ever: the 73x. Just remember that summer when several 737s had accidents (it was 1983 or 84, i'm not sure) I was then on holidays to London. I had flown 732, and tha way back home was four days after the crash of a BAW 737 in Sheffield. The flight was to be on board 732 (Boeing 737-200) of BA. Furthermore, the flight back home (LGW-BCN) was in the hardest turbulences i had ever lived until then (the baggage racks were flexioning the opposite sense of the fusselage, and the short wings flexioning about one meter, half up and half down), during 1h50m out of the 2h15 long the flight was. Not only I was never scared, but I discovered how funny is flying in turbulences... Since then when my friends and family ask me how the fligt was, my answer is "boring" for smooth, and "funny" and/or "exciting" for bumpy (see my history in topic "What companies have you flown in?" for details).
My conclusion is that:
whoever might be
"scared of flying D10s"
is not
"scared of flying just D10s":
is just
"scared of flying".
That's it.

I flew on the DC10 quite a lot in the early 1980s and thought they were the business. MAS had a small fleet and (boy) were they great to fly on. I flew with them on the LHR-FRA/AMS-DXB-KUL route several times as well as their KUL-HKG route and thought they were fine...never felt unsafe...nevertheless...I'm glad they've switched them to the 777s today!

I have never read so much ill-imformed rubbish - the saying "a little knowledge is dangerous" is true.

Yes, there was a design problem with the cargo door & people died, but let's get a few facts straight.

The Windsor incident highlight the problem, and mod action was taken. The a/c involved in the Paris accident was supposed to have had the mod embodied, but someone at MCD falsified the records, a management problem.

The person who latched the door on the Paris a/c couldn't read english & was poorly trained. He experienced difficulty in closing the handle and in the end forced the handle down with his knee, bending the mechanism. Had the required modification been carried out, the door would have still indicated unlocked on the Flt Dk. When the door blew open, the floor collapsed, a
possibility at that time for all widebodies. It did not
however collapse on to redundant controls. the only dual control system in the floor are the elevator cables.
Incidentally the only reason the 747 controls are in the roof is the fact the cockpit is above the main deck.

The ORD crash.

That was nothing to do with MCD. It was poor UNAPPROVED maint practices performed by AA. ChucknSteph says engine removal should be geared to airline requirement's, there is nothing wrong with the MCD procedures to change engines, it is the same procedure as every other a/c manufacturer has. Besides the AA procedure was not for a standard engine change, airlines do not have engine pylons sitting on the self in stores waiting to be replaced with engines, that would tie up millions of $ that would be reflected in air fares. The only pylons an airline has are the pylons the a/c comes with.

When the pylon came off, the slats on the LH wing retracted causing that wing to stall, the crew, thinking thay had lost an engine, increased power on the #3 Engine causing the a/c to swing left which increased the lift on the r/h wing and stalling the l/h wing further. Had they throttled it back & just increased power on #2 the incident would have been recoverable. In saying this I am not blaming the pilot's, it was an unusual senario.

Souix City.

The hydraulics in the tail were severed, but consider this, when driving your car, a flying stone in the right place could sever the hydraulics to your brakes or power steering. You cannot design anything to cover every possibility. For a start, you would need a crystal ball to think of everything, and imagine the outcry when something happened that had not been foreseen.
More importantly if they did design to this philosophy everyone on this forum would be complaining that air fares are too high. There has to be a balance between design for possible senario's and costs.

I take issue with several points.
In the ORD crash, Douglas is somewhat at fault. In their pylon to wing design, (below) an engine would likely separate at the aft pylon mount, dropping the rear down, and allowing the engine to rocket itself up and over the wing, which as we know now, ripped the hydraulic lines to the slats.
This was the result:

Lockeed had a similar aircraft, but the pylon assembly (below) was such that if the pylon separated from the wing, it would separate first from the forward pylon mount, dropping away and under the wing, thereby leaving the slats and their hydraulic lines intact. Also, notice that the pylon mount comes right to the front of the engine on this L-1011, helping to keep the engine from pivoting over the wing if it were to separate from the pylon. Compare to DC-10 above.
In the Orly crash, the rear cargo door had a latch whereby it was possible to force it into the closed position when the locking pins were in fact not engaged. Additionally, Douglas ran the hydraulic lines under the floor boards. When the faulty latch gave way and the cargo door blew off, the depressurization sucked the floor down and out the opening, destroying everything in the floor. McDonnell Douglas could have routed the lines through the roof like Lockheed. But they did not. It was cheaper and more convenient to run them through the floor.

In the Sioux City crash, they routed all hydraulic lines together up through the tail to the rudder assembly. When the #2 engine, which is merely inserted into the tail, blew, it cut through them all. In effect, eliminating with one design flaw the whole purpose of having redundancy in hydraulic lines in the first place. On the L-1011, the N#2 engine is below and out of the way, contained by the S-duct assembly. The rudder lines are protected from an uncontained fan disk disintegration. But this is a more complex, expensive, and inconvenient place to have a third engine. Much more expedient and cheaper to do it he way McDonnell Douglas did.
This was the result:

Yes, doing it right does cost a little more. That is why Lockheed couldn't sell more than 250 of their planes while Douglass sold a hundred more by the time Lockheed delivered their last L-1011 in 1984. Lockheed designers did have a crystal ball. And that clairvoyance made the plane slightly more expensive to produce. But Delta, TWA, and Eastern still chose it. American and United came close to selecting it as well.

First let me say I was a Certifying Engineer on DC-10 for a British Operator for over 10 years, including the period after ORD.

What you say regarding the DC-10 pylon breakway design is true, but you miss the point of the design. I cannot speak for the Tristar but on the B747 & DC-10 the pylons are designed to break away in a wheels up landing senario, to prevent the fuel tanks rupturing. Thay are NOT designed for an inflight breakaway.

Regarding your photo of the Tristar Pylon I would suggest the the actual pylon structure ends at the vertical joint on the pylon half way down the fan cowl. The structure fwd of that being a fairing. In any case if a pylon were to breakaway in flt at the moment of breakaway the engine would be delivering thrust, and the geometry of the thrust line to the pylon would force the engine up and over anyway ! Additionally may I ask how you know the Tristar pylon design breaks away from the front first ?

Regarding the Paris crash, hindsight is a wonderful thing, every airliner prior to the Tristar had the Flt controls running through the floor, so why should MDC consider doing anything different ?

It's true part of the door latching mechanism was poorly designed and could deform, but as I said in my earlier post this fault had been identified & mandatory mod action had been taken, unfortuneatly the THY a/c had had it's documents falsified and had not been modified.

You refer to the Tristar engine being below the flt controls, thus being safer than the DC-10 design. May I just point out that when a rotating disc shatters, pieces fly out in all directions not just down. An RB211 fan failing could just as easily damage the flt control systems of a Tristar. I also suggest the the S Duct is not designed for Fan Containment and certainly not to contain a failed fan hub.

Firstly, let me state that I am not a certifying engineer on the DC-10, or any other aircraft. Which, I assume, precludes me from speaking from a manufacturer's bias.

While the DC-10 engine pylon may not be designed to separate inflight, the result, if it did, would be the same. It would go up and over the wing. Damage to the wing is unavoidable. In order to make the pylon/engine assembly fall down and away, all that is needed is to make the front pylon mount weaker than the aft. The aft mount is somewhat higher than the line of the thrust vector, as you call it. If the front mount lets go, the engine should pivot somewhat downwards. The thrust vector is now down for good. If the rear mount holds, then the wing is saved. If it lets go from the extra stress imparted to it by the torquing motion and from its own weight, then the assembly will fall down and away from the aircraft. It will not re-vector itself, go forward, up, and then over the wing. Impossible. It was my understanding, from an ariticle I read several years ago about the L-1011, that this is what Lockheed had designed. If it was only theory, then they let a good idea go to waste. In which case, it was very good that they made sure that none of their RR engines ever fell off.

As far as the THY crash is concerned, McDonnell Douglas knew of the deadly potential of the latch problem from the AA Windsor incident. That aircraft was spared the same fate because it was nearly empty at the back. Without the extra load, the floor held. Unfortunately, the THY flight was full to capacity. After the Windsor incident, McDonnell Douglas got the California senator to pressure the FAA into not issuing an Air Worthiness Directive. They were successful. Until the THY disaster. It was only then that the FAA stood firm and grounded all US registered DC-10s. McDonnell Douglas knew of the deadly potential of the problem. But instead of addressing the danger with a technical solution, they instead addressed it with a political one. That McDonnell Douglas made a bad design, is not unforgiveable. What is unforgiveale is what they did after they knew. Should they have had the foresight to put the hydraulic lines through the roof, as did their competitor? Well, if they had done destructive load testing, they probably would have. Or they would have made a better latch. Or the would have fixed the problem right away. Or they would have encouraged an AD instead of fighting against it.

As far as the UA 232 flight, putting a third engine through the tail as McDonnell Douglas chose to do, did not take into account the possibility of an uncontained fan disk separation. But those things do happen. Unfortunately for UA 232, this N#2 engine location exposed the tail to engine debris from all angles and directions. In the Lockheed design, the N#2 engine is several meters away from the tail and the vital items it contains. While it is true that shrapnel flies out in all directions, the McDonnell Douglas tail takes the hit from all directions. It was gutted out from within. The L-1011 tail would take debris from below only, if at all. Every spinning engine is a potential bomb. So putting a bomb right inside the tail was perhaps not a wise choice for locating the third engine, even at the time.

But then again, McDonnell Douglas never foresaw that a N#2 engine would explode, taking out the tail control surfaces. Just as they never foresaw a rear cargo door giving way and sucking the floor boards and the oil lines out into the abyss. Just as they never foresaw an engine pylon mount weakened from maintenance abuse, either.

But that is what this debate centers on. The contention that it is not reasonable to have expected McDonnell Douglas to have foreseen such events, and therefore, neither they, nor their product, can bear any fault. Conversely, there is the contention that there were those who foresaw such possibilites. They worked at both companies. But as is Lockeed's reputation, they were always planning one step ahead. Costs be damned. But they paid for this with lower sales and the inevitable demise of their L-1011. McDonnell Douglas on the otherhand, met only the requirements and challenges of the day. Nothing more.

Does this mean the DC-10 was an unsafe plane. Of course not. As I said earlier, I have flown on it in the past and do not fear it. But it is a lot safer now than it was 30 years ago, and many things about it rubbed some people, even technical people, the wrong way. And that is what the original poster was asking when he started this thread. You know all this stuff better than me, so I don't hope to educate you.

To begin with I said I worked on the the DC-10, I didn't say I was paid by MDC. I also have experience on B707, 747,757, Airbus 300,310,320,340, Vicker's VC-10 & BAC 1-11. My point of making the statement was to illustrate I am speaking from first hand knowledge.

I don't dispute that a DC-10 engine will go over the top, what I do query is the theory that a Tristar engine won't at cruise power. If the front pylon mount fails, engine thrust will keep the engine up against the wing.
If the aft mount fails thrust will try push the engine fwd & up. You only have to be close to an eng running at high power to see this. As the engine accelerates you can see the engine rotate fwd and up, this true for any a/c not just the DC-10.

The #2 Eng on the '10 is aft of the compartment that contains the elevator/rudder controls & hyd lines. The CF-6 engine is designed with Fan BLADE containment in mind however I do not believe any airframe or engine manufacturer will allow for fan hub catastrophic failure in their design. You say these thing happen, can you tell me of another fan hub failure ?

TO KNOW ONE IS TO LOVE ONE .... BUT ON THE OTHER HAND I DON'T FLY ....I WORK HEAVY CK MAINT. ON -10 & -30 DC-10'S AND THE PYLON'S AND WINGS ARE VERY WELL BUILT THE DC-10 IN MY HANGER TODAY WAS BUILT IN 1973 . I ONLY FLY IF THERE IS NO OTHER WAY ... I'VE SEEN TO MANY THINGS IN MY 22 YRS AS AN A&P TO GET ON ANY AIRCRAFT ....

Next time try the old "dirty Sanchez" She'll love it !!!

25 Hmmmm...
: I realize that you do not work for McDonnell Douglas. I meant to imply, tongue-in-cheek, that as someone who works with the DC-10, familiarity might p

26 Dc10guy
: all the weight on a wing eng. pylon is on the fwd mount. we have to sometimes do what is called a "hard over inspection " that is, if a pilot for some

27 Spence
: Douglas did tests on the S-duct on the DC-10. "The studies showed that the straight- through inlet duct would yield better performance, permit easier